


Don't Go Poking Your Nose Where It Isn't Wanted

by Deathsmallcaps



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Body Horror, Gen, I'm not that much into creepy things!!!, OC, Statement, The Buried - Freeform, The Last Unicorn - Freeform, The coffin, and 2017 where Hope dies, honestly i don't think i was too graphic but, idk - Freeform, no betas we die like men, reference, season 1 ish, set sometime between episode two, tumblr inspired, where john (the owner) gets swallowed, why do I keep on writing creepy shit???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:53:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23887000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deathsmallcaps/pseuds/Deathsmallcaps
Summary: What happens if you poke a hole into the coffin?
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	Don't Go Poking Your Nose Where It Isn't Wanted

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by derinthescarletpescatarian on tumblr. Thanks dude, now I have to study for a math test in ten hours.

_Statement of D. Samantha Caps, regarding a coffin_ sigh _sucking her cousin into the earth on 29 July, 2015. Original statement received 17 February 2016. Audio recording by Jonathon Sims, head archivist of the Magnus Institute, London. Statement begins._

I blame this entirely on my cousin. I just want you to know, if she hadn’t kept refilling my drink, I wouldn’t have been drunk enough to do something as stupid as this. So, be me and visiting your grandparents in England for three weeks in the summer of 2015. It was all fine the first week - I talked with my Nanny about my Dad as a kid, she showed me around the Trent, you see some cygnets, almost get eaten by their mother, and go on bike rides around the little square neighborhoods. But you can only talk to one person for so long, so when she says she’s going to pop over to see her sister, do you want to come, I said sure. I vaguely remembered my great-aunt’s granddaughter, (she was roughly my age) and hopefully she would have something fun to do.

Not really. We watched some bad tv, accidentally found my great-aunt’s collection of dirty books, and then went walking towards the evening - I had asked to stay there for the weekend. Apparently Nadia knew of some more fun places to visit. We passed into a more industrial part of the town. When we came up to an old factory building, with music and the occasional sound of broken glass pouring out, she turned around and looked at me with a critical eye. I was 15 and Nadia was 18, but we looked the same age because I was pretty tall and, if the three times I had been mistaken for a teacher said anything, apparently dressed like a middle-aged woman.

She looked at my sneakers and my cargo pants, sighed, and gave me a shoddy makeover. I’m pretty sure I looked terrible, if her own makeup was anything to go by, but no one gave me a second glance when we first entered the party.

I had meant to only drink one beer, just to be social, but whenever I seemed to find water it always turned out to be some alcohol or another, and then later, I didn’t care. I kind of want to blame what I saw on the alcohol or the dehydration, anything to make it not true. But I know what I saw. I felt it in my bones, the fear washing up and down my legs. But I’ll get to that.

It was late, probably past midnight, when Nadia, her friends Maria and River and I started walking back to her house. It was the middle of the night around many small businesses, so there were many white paneled vans. And yet why we stopped by this one, I’ll never know. Despite the fuzz in my head and vision, I could feel the wrongness emanating from the van. I tried to shuffle past quickly, but that’s when Nadia whispered, as quietly as a buzzed person could, “Oi Sammy, check out this van!”. Her friends were gathered around it and giggling. Someone had already drawn a big red dick on the side, although I don’t think it smelled like spray paint or marker.

Maria pulled a Sharpie out of her pocket, soon illuminating the sides with many imaginative curses. Apparently this was a thing they were all accustomed to doing, as both River and Nadia pulled out their own markers and added their own marks to the van.

I didn’t know my way back to the house, and my phone didn’t have international service, so I just stood around and kept watch. It was all going fine, and I think they were getting bored, when River must’ve bumped the car too roughly or something and the car alarm went off.

Panicking - we didn’t want the cops to see what we were doing - I pulled out my multi-tool knife and jimmied the lock. I didn’t know how cars worked, I just wanted it to shut up. Well, I unlocked the door. Didn’t stop the beeping though. So River jumped into the front seat, grabbed my multi-tool, and somehow started the car. The time appeared on the console. It said 1:48 AM.

Hearts in our throats, we sat there, panting, with the side door slid open and the marker juice still drying on the van’s walls and on their fingers.

We didn’t notice at first, all the weird items in the van. But once the adrenaline had shaken itself out, River took out the tool from the now-scratched up keyhole and handed it back to me. Their eyes shifted to the wooden box to my left and widened in surprise. “Is that a coffin?!” he whispered, half in alarm, half in surprise. We all turned towards it.

Yup, it was a coffin alright. Six feet long, six sides, painted a dark, solemn gray. We all stared at it. Finally, Maria said what we were all thinking. “Do you think there’s a body inside?”

I was so skeeved out of my mind, but terribly curious. At the time, the only dead body I had ever seen before was my cat’s - would it look all waxy like they do in the movies? Is this one just a skeleton? I didn’t know, but some part of me wanted to find out.

“Hey, Sammy, does your knife have a screwdriver or something? Let’s see inside.” Nadia asked. Oh, I wish I had said no.

“Yeah, dude, here you go!” I instead said helpfully, flipping out the tool she needed. Clumsily, and almost maddeningly, Nadia wore away at a spot close to the lid, where she figured whoever was lugging the coffin wouldn’t notice. Then she poked another hole, so she could shine her flip phone’s video flash through to see the body.

I was slowly shuffling backwards, out of the car. I didn’t need to be a part of this. Maria was eyeing the door like she had the same thought.

Nadia put her eye up to the hole.

The sliding door slammed shut. The back of my shirt got caught in the crack of the door. Before I could even think to say anything, a scritchy-scratchy sound started to come from the inside of the coffin. It sounded like someone was trying to get out. That wasn’t my concern, though.

The van was lowering. Oh you couldn’t exactly feel it at first, but I chanced a look out of the window and sure enough, we were getting closer to ground level. The metal groaned like a sinking ship, and occasionally concrete would scrrraaaape along the metal of the van.

Too scared of getting stuck in the ground, stuck in the car, I wiggled out of my shirt and scrambled for the closest window. I almost couldn’t fit between the space of the front seats - it was like the whole car was getting smaller. One of River’s legs was stuck under the steering wheel, so I helped pull them out and then kicked the window, repeatedly. By the time I managed to crack through, Maria had been almost trapped in the back, the seats too close for even her skinny frame to slip out. The bottom of the window was level to the ground.

I scraped out, belly getting cut by asphalt and glass alike, with River fast behind me. Maria’s boot almost got stuck between the top of the window - the car was sinking even faster now - and the bottom of the street. We sat there, and watched.

When the car had sunk below street level, the pavement started pouring over the car, oozy and scratchy. I thought I heard Nadia scream, but with that much asphalt scratching the metal exterior of the car, could you really tell one scream from another?

We sat there for a long time, until the street had completely settled, with no sign that it had just swallowed my cousin. Eventually, Maria’s phone buzzed. It was 1:49 AM.

“Well, looky here.” A rough, maybe-cockney voice said from behind us. I jumped to my feet, swaying slightly from a lack of balance. Maria and River scrambled to stand too.

Two large men stood, blocking the street lights from either direction. The one who had spoken smiled. There was something wrong with his teeth.

The other one, just as unsettling, said, “Looks like we have some vandals, we do.”

The first one shook his head. “Don’t like vandals.”

“Sure don’t.”

“What should we do with them, I wonder?”

River took a step back, and then bumped into something, hard. My head whipped to my side. The van was back.

I dared to hope. Maybe I had been imagining things? But then, where was Nadia?

Maria was already talking to the men - apparently she was far braver than I was. “I think, uh, our friend got stuck in there. Can we, uh, take a, uh, look.”

The second one raised one hairy eyebrow. “It wants to take a look, it does.”

“S’pose we’ll let it.”

“Botched job anyway, not even sure which One could claim it.”

“Real shame, that.”

One pulled keys out of his pocket and jammed one into the lock. I wanted to be the first to look inside, I wanted to see that Nadia was okay, but that would have meant turning my back towards at least one of these men. And I had a feeling that would be a very bad idea.

The smell that wafted out was one of rock dust and blood. Maria gasped and retched, falling to the ground. River was faced more or less towards the man not by the door, so I took a quick look.

While the outside of the van looked fine - it didn’t even have any graffiti on it! - the inside was a mess. It looked like the inside of a soda can, if you crushed one and then tried to straighten it out again. What was once a dusty sort of white was now a Jackson Pollock painting of brown, white, gray and red. So much red. And the coffin …

Around where the hole had been, there was so much blood. Bits of hair and cloth were embedded in the wood. No, not the wood. A fleshy sort of plug, two of them. One where the phone had been pressed, and the other, where Nadia’s eye had been. The phone lay, still recording, and covered in what looked to be a fragment of a bloody bone, close to the door. I snatched it and ended the video, then turned back, terrified, towards the men.

One had gotten considerably closer than before. His smile was wider. There was something wrong with his tongue, too.

River, who hadn’t looked back, grabbed both Maria and I by the hand. He thanked the men profusely, facing their way the entire time as we backed down the dark and empty street. I tried to turn and run once we were around the corner, but Maria grabbed my bare shoulder to look me in the eyes. I think we were all stone cold sober by then. She said, warningly, “You must never run from anything immortal. It attracts their attention.” So we walked back to my great-aunt’s house. Giddy and terrified, we whistled in the dark.

I thought I heard the rumble of a van once, twice, three times - but I dared not run. I didn’t even try turning back. Whatever had taken my cousin wasn’t going to take me.

When we woke up the next morning, my great-aunt had already called the police. We knew they wouldn’t believe the whole truth, so we had decided on a half-truth. Nadia had gotten into a white van. We didn’t see her come out.

I went home to America early. My family in England were distraught and, I think, blamed me. I kind of blame myself too.

I can’t really get into cars anymore - I almost had a panic attack on the airplane. Everyday, my world feels smaller. Sometimes, I can barely enter my house. I don’t know what to do. I can’t just, live outside, right? But how can I go in a building if it feels like I'm being swallowed? How can I pass through a tunnel, knowing I’m being digested by the earth? Can I live like this?

I sent this statement to River - they’re the one who told me about this place, and they’re the one sending it to you. Apparently they gave their statement too? Said it made them feel better. I don’t know what you guys will do with this statement. I guess, just, stay away from those men. If they carry that sort of weird shit around, they’ve got to be awful people.

I haven't watched the video. But I've sent the phone, too. 

_Statement ends._


End file.
